


Invader Karkat

by Kuroitora_chan



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Invader Zim Inspired, Invader!Karkat, M/M, Paranormal Investigator!John
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:28:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27536812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuroitora_chan/pseuds/Kuroitora_chan
Summary: Karkat wants to be accepted amongst his kind.For that, he has to prove himself.It's Karkat, though, so he falls in love.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, John Egbert & Karkat Vantas
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	1. Fucking Doomsday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat almost forgot that today was assignment day, but he isn't giving up on becoming The Best Invader.

Karkat ran like a hound after a fox, searching blindly for a parking spot in the midst of the confusion and excitement on the Alternian space parking-lot for the Great Invader Assignment made by Her Imperious Condescension.

He was the best at the academy, but no one gave him any credit because of his blood color. No one of his superiors ever gave him a chance.

This! This was his way of making his chance! By proving to her, by proving to the whole empire how invaluable he actually was!

All he needed was for her to give him a chance.

Karkat saw the transmissions from the event happening everywhere.

The hall was full to the brim. There were trolls on top of trolls cluttering the corners so that the middle was left wide and clear. Such a path led to a high, circular platform with tentacles sprouting from the base. The wiggly appendages held a transparent rectangle, littered with white dots of several sizes and one big sphere, painted in a pinkish hue.

“Get out of my fucking way, asshole!” Karkat screamed while squeezing himself through two blue bloods who were also headed to the Grand Invader Assignment Hall. He added a middle finger and a raspberry, just for good measure, in case they couldn’t hear him and kept running.

The troll ducked and jumped and cursed at every corner, just to get late to the door of the Great Invader Assignment Hall. Huge, massive doors of violet tinged steel imposed themselves between him and the interior of where he needed so desperately to be.

“NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH-o” Karkat screamed to the skies, banging on the door with his fists. 

“No” He said with newly found determination “I’m not going to get beaten by a stupid, ugly, fucking MISPLACED SET OF BULGE TINTED DOORS!”

Karkat ran around the outside of the building, trying to find another way in. Another entrance, maybe a set of open windows, but none of those things were there, just a fat olive blood, with too big a hat for it’s head. Their chest would rise and fall, as if they were asleep.

Internally, Karkat fumed at this blatant show of incompetence, but his pan realized something before his blood-pushed could push him to roast this guy so thoroughly, the crispy rest of whatever was left would try to commit suicide.

He realized he could use this opportunity to press the button that would open the doors… so he did that.

The doors opened and with excitement thrilling all throughout his body, KArkat allowed his ganderbulbs to soak in the image of Her Imperious Condescension in all her pink glory. Standing tall, above all other trolls, with her tawdry golden jewelry glittering bright, just not as bright as her shark-like teeth as she laughed maniacally over her chosen ones.

Amongst which Karkat was not.

Yet.

As soon as the doors were open and he saw the faces of his academy colleagues lose their smile, he knew he didn’t have much time.

Her Imperious Condescension lowered her mighty golden trident, and her eyes glowed with the spark of both rage and psionics.

“And who the blubing blub if this shrimp?”

Karkat wanted to shit his pants in fear and respect of her grandioseness. He bowed deeply, and with the most thunderous voice he could muster, the words were expelled out of his breathing-sack into the world.

“My Condescension! There has been a mistake. I am supposed to be an invader too, but I was not summoned! Lucky is the Empire that I made it at all!”

“You weren’t invited on purpose, VantASS!” said some random person in the crowd.

“Go back to your doll house ANTass” said some other random person.

“GO FUCK YOURSELF. THAT’S NOT EVEN A GOOD ROAST. *AND I’M AVERAGE HEIGHT!!!*”

The Empress coughed and Karkat immediately turned back to her and kept speaking from where he had left off “Certainly, you must still have an assignment for me.”

“What’s your blood, shrimp?”

Karkat paled.

That’s one question that had been persecuting him throughout his entire existence. It’s the answer that would get him killed however.

“Why the fuck does that matter?”

It was his last attempt at not being culled on sight.

Her Imperious Condescension was not amused. She lasered the floor right between his legs, making Karkat jump high and squeal in horror as his demise clicked her heels on the flood, getting closer one step at a time.

“I’m not gonna ask again, shrimp.”

If he told her, he would die. If he didn’t, he would die. Maybe if he told her, she’d at least grant him a swift death.

“Red,” he said, as clearly as he could with the fear that coiled in his gut.

She went pale.

“Red? Like, rust?”

Karkat shook his head. She stabbed the floor pressing his neck with the curved part of her shinny trident.

“You’ve got some nerve showing your insidious chubby face up here, shrimp! Specially after what your ancestor did to the whole Empire, spreading bullshit about my leadership skills like I haven’t been doing this job my entire life!” She turns around and gestures to the whole hall “And successfully too!”

The trolls in the hall start to cheer. She scoops Karkat off the floor with his neck still at the end of her shinny, oversized fork. He hold on, swinging his feet uselessly.

“Give me one reason not to kill you.”

“I’m- ack! loyal,” Karkat says.

Her Imperious Condescension looks Karkat’s full body, noticing his uniform, noticing how he is not trying to fight her, just survive her, noticing how he came to the hall subdued to her, asking for her approval. Huh, maybe this guy is loyal.

She looks at the computer being held up by the tentacles of her Lusus, tunneling her vision on a watery planet a couple solar systems away from where they stand. She drops him to the floor, and Karkat takes some deep breaths and coughing the pain in his windtube away.

“I’m loyal! And I can do this! I JUST NEED A CHANCE!”

“SILENCE!” she screamed “I’m thinking… Walk with me, mutant. I think I have a planet I might be able to assign to you.”

Karkat stood fast and with a smile on his face. Nevermind that she was calling him out on his mutation in front of a hall full of other trolls that would promptly kill him just for the chance to exchange some words with Her Imperious Condescension. Grow some shameglobes, you stupid posers. Fuck it that he was just shitting his pants in fear of death five seconds ago. That’s old news already. 

As they arrived at the podium, she started zooming in and in and in and in, up until she found the system she was looking for.

“I’m sending you to this rocky planet,” she told him, pointing at a tiny sphere in a map with a big sun and 7 other spheres of different sizes, “Your job is to infiltrate their society and find any weaknesses you can that might help with our conquest, as you already know.”

“Yes, your Imperiousness.”

Finally! Finally Karkat would have a chance to prove to all those that thought he would amount to nothing just how much more them THEM he would be.

“However, I find you to be upsetting,” she started, killing the devious smile on Karkat’s face instantly “so if you fail, don’t even bother coming back, or I, Her Imperious Condescension, will grant myself the pleasure of taking your life with my own two eyes!”

Her eyes glowed menacingly, and Karkat swallowed dry. Then, he remembered something of utmost importance.

“Could I get my blood to not be outlawed if I manage to prepare this mysterious planet for the arrival of the armada?”

She looked at him, considering.

“Yeah, shore, why not.”

“YES!”

“But if you fail I’ll ensure that none other like you will ever even live enough to see the moons out of the brooding caverns. And I’ll make good on it this time.”

He swallowed dry again and lowered his head “Understood, Her Maquiavellianess. I shall not disappoint you!”

“Good.”

“Where am I going, though?”

“A place where your blood is actually gonna serve as an advantage, shrimp. You’re gonna blend right in. Ever heard of The Earth?”


	2. Alien crash-course on how to be an asshole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John sees something landing on the park and heads off to investigate.

The neighborhood was quiet the night John looked out the window and saw a glowing star fall off from the sky. Even with no evidence that such a weird occurrence would bear any fruit to his investigations, he went to look it up. After all, Nasa had more pressing things to do then look for evidence of alien life-forms. Like… building spaceships or something…

He got his gear and let Jade know that he was going out to look for something that went under the government radar and crash landed on a patch of dirt close to the park.

“If I’m not back by time to go to school, let Dad know that my efforts were heroic!”

“Yeah, yeah” she agreed disinterestedly. Everyone knew John was crazy anyway, so why bother? Her game was much more interesting and her high score was already tasting like victory at her fingertips.

With half a dozen tweeks, John’s ghost-finder could easily pick up alien signals. Or at least that's what he thought. In any case, his device was definitely picking a signal on something coming from the direction of the woods. What could it be? It was obviously aliens but, in his mind, John wondered if the life form would have escaped already, or camouflaged.

He had to be quick.

On the site of the crash, even before the dark fog could subside, John could hear a raspy, ornery tone.

"Fucking trashy, shitty spaceship! If I had known that this filthy planet was going to show off this much resistance to entering its atmosphere, I would've told that asshole on control-center to put a break in it! Now I'm fucking stuck."

"Incredible! He can't go anywhere, so I can capture him! No. I should wait to see what kind of technology it shows" John mumbled to himself, hiding inconspicuously in the shadows.

"Come out of the fucking spaceship at once GIR! I need that info you gathered so I can disguise myself as one of these fffffilthy, horrid, disgustingly inferior life-forms."

The alien was completely ignored.

"What the fuck it taking you so long? Get the hell out of there NOW! NOW GIR! RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!"

From the interior of the spaceship, a whirring resonated along the sound of someone - or something - making grunts of extreme force. Until it stopped.

"I can't." Said a wimpy voice, stating the fact for all to know. He was trapped inside the ship, after all.

"UUUUUUUUrgh," the alien grunted, sick to the core with all the fuckery this machine had put him through so far "use your extendable arms and lift it, for fuck sakes. You are absolutely capable of it."

"Awwww. Thanks, master," the voice retorted "but I don't know how to do that."

"YOU ARE A ROBOT FOR THE TROLL EMPIRE, HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW HOW TO ACTIVATE YOUR FUCKING BASIC FUNCTIONS?"

John, while still hidden, was magnified by the fact he was going to see a walking, talking robot with an AI for the first time! His father had worked with a couple of engineers, like his best friend's genius brother, to finish building some fully articulated members for the first full robotic body on earth, but that was just the husk. This guy was  _ talking _ to his bot.

"I know how to blow," the bot said.

"NO! DON'T! WE CAN'T DRAW ANY MORE ATTENTION!"

With a fully metallic voice, the robot proclaimed "self destruction sequence initiated."

"NO! GIR! STOP! WHY ARE YOU SO INFURIATINGLY BRAIN DEAD?!"

"Set to T minus 5-"

As the countdown started, John knew he had to spring himself into action, so as any good human with the intent to save Earth and all those who live in it, he rose to his feet and ran to the opposite direction.

"4"

Dead human boys can't save the Earth, especially if they have been cremated to smithereens.

"3"

But right before he can run away with the knowledge that humans are not alone in the universe, he sees the alien fumbling with something small in his spaceship. He pockets it and runs away as fast as his legs can take him.

"2"

When he thinks he's far enough, he hides behind a tree, covers his ears and closes his eyes. 

"1"

John thinks he heard the bushes right next to him move, but shrugs it off as a squirrel.

"0"

The explosion blasts the spaceship into non-existence. A swift, instant disintegration of it's traces that goes around as purple confetti.

When John opens his eyes, he's mesmerized and disgusted. The alien is right beside him, and the form he takes breaks all of his expectations with hydraulic-press efficiency.

Instead of being green, like he always imagined they would be, they are gray, bug looking, with shark-like teeth, coarse hair an ugly, unnatural piss-colored sclera. The horns sprouted from its head and seemed like big candy corn.Their skin was shinny, like the wings of a beetle and his nails were huge, filled into a claw-ish manner, perfect to rip and tear at skin.

However, despite all the differences, the form looked familiar. A head, two legs, two arms, a nose, a mouth, two eyes. It was like they took a human off the planet and changed their color palette.

Not to mention how incredibly vulnerable the alien looked with surprise plastered all over his features. Mouth agape, the gray tongue flattened and wide eyes.

It was gross and foreign and fascinating. John couldn't wait to cut him open to see how much more fascinating he would be on the inside.

And also save the Earth and make his dad proud as a consequence, obviously.

"I finally have you, alien," he said more to himself than to someone else.

"Fuck right off, earth monkey! You will never catch me! GIR! ESCAPE PROTOCOL!"

John starts chasing the gray alien until he sees the robot flying and stops inches short of losing his hand. The alien rides the robot like a bicycle and laughs evilly from his perch of safety in the air.

"You will never catch me, stupid human, for I, Karkat Vantas, The most incredible Invader of the Almighty Troll Empire, shall bring this rock to the glory of conquest by making youuuuu and every other ffffffilthy, retched creature into my slaves. Bow now and I might make the iminent reign of UNSURMOUNTABLE TERROR more bearable on your stupid monkey braaaaaain!"

"Never! I'll never surrender, moth-man!" John told him.

The robot started failing.

"GIR, what the fuck? I'm in the middle of something!"

"I want tacos," the robot answers.

"What the fuck are tacos?" Is the last thing Karkat says before GIR blasts away, leaving John alone in the park and making Karkat scream his breath-sacks hoarse with the unexpected change of directions that happened without his input.

In his mind, however, John was certain that the race for Earth had already begun.


	3. Skool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wtf 'gay' even means??

Ms. Snowoman hisses for the students to sit on their assigned seats. John and Dave sit in the middle, closest to the front of the class and joke around making facial and vocal imitations of last night’s episode of Mysterious Mysteries.

“That guy pretending to be big-foot was so stupid, man. I can’t believe you fall for that stuff.”

Dave was blond, white and really cool with his aviator shades. John was very proud of his purchase. He had never seen his friend take them off after he replaced his previous kamina pair with these ones. John had even gone online on some shady corners of the internet to make sure he would get the genuine ones. The ones Ben Stiller used.

It was the epitome of irony. And only they knew.

Despite being his best friend since middle school, Dave had the bad habit of doubting John's discoveries. He was the first one to tell John to  _ ‘lay off the green, dude, it’s giving you hallucinations _ ’.

However, Dave also believed in aliens, just not the sentient kind. The kind of alien that John faced in the dark of last week and covered his body in sweat from the run and grime from the explosion.

Dave was more in the ‘ _ theres bacteria out there. maybe someday it’ll become sentient but for now its just finding out how to get its mitocondria on something else. _ ’

Before John could even say anything back, Ms. Snowoman began an announcement “Students, from now on we have a new face to get used to. And I have a new brain to devoid of hope,” she said the next part with as much sarcasm as she could muster with how tired she was “I can’t wait.”

A boy walked in the class and even with the makeup and the baseball cap and the contact lenses and the nail polish over his disgusting claws, John knew.

It was The Alien. He couldn’t hide that jagged overbite.

And it appeared he also recognized him if the way his mouth opened in horror was any indication to go by.

“YOU!” Karkat said.

“IT’S HIM,” John screamed, more in surprise than to make Dave know.

“It seems like you already have a friend,” the teacher said disinterestedly.

“This fucked up monkey is NOT MY FRIEND” Karkat defended.

“See? Who the fuck would call another human a monkey?” 

“Racist people,” Dave pointed out “they do that.”

“Enough. Everyone shut up. This is Karkat. Now go find a place to sit so I can start.” Ms. Snowoman said.

He sat at the front of the classroom because the rest of the seats were taken, but made sure to flip John the bird before getting comfortable in his seat.

John flipped him back, but Karkat didn’t mind because he didn’t see it. He knew that if he could get the teacher to like him, he’d be the kid with the most power of the entire class. It would also help him not arouse any suspicion or unwanted attention towards himself.

People would just think he was a nerd, right? No one pays attention to nerds.

The rest of the class was about space and how full of doom it was.

As Karkat listened to the teacher drag on about it, he thought about how well he knew what she meant. How many days he spent lost into deep space, traveling among the stars in his tiny ship beside his loyal (if retarded) robot-slave.

It was vast and dark and filled with impending dread, but it was also beautiful and filled with possibility. With chance. Like this chance. The chance to not be a pariah, the chance of having his caste reintegrate the Empire, the chance to be a hero.

And as the class dragged on into lunch time, he kept thinking and observing, up until some braindead asshole threw a cup full of faygo in his head. 

“Fag” said some innane voice.

“He is, isn’t he? His nail polish is even better then mine!” whined a female.

Karkat went ballistic. He grabbed the cup from his head, crumpled the trash in his hand and stood up.

“Who was the motherfucker that threw faygo on me? Cause you’re dead, you piece of buoyant shit!”

“Yeah, yeah, you can get them after classes are over. While I’m here, you’re just going to have to settle for going to the bathroom,” said Snowoman already reaching for something on the first drawer of her table “here’s the hall pass.”

Stomping his way while glaring daggers at every human, Karkat gets the cardboard written ‘hall pass’ and exits the classroom. Five seconds later he comes back.

“Ms. Snowoman, this is my first day. I don’t know where the bathroom is.”

“John,” she calls, getting his attention away from the rant he was giving Dave about the evidence about Karkat being an alien life-form “since you and Karkat seem to be good friends, go show him where the bathroom is.”

“HE’S NOT MY FRIEND,” Karkat and John say simultaneously.

“And take the auxiliary hall-pass,” Snowoman pointed, ignoring their protests and hoisting an air-conditioning unit.

She thought it would be a good idea to have  _ that _ be the auxiliary hall-pass to make kids reassess if they  _ really _ needed to go pee.

John definitely didn’t need to go pee. And he didn’t want to hoist that monster around school just because the bane of his existence needed to go take a leak. Or a shit. Or whatever aliens called their biological waste.

“Ms. Snowoman, Dave actually needs to go to the bathroom. He could take Karkat there.”

Dave looked up from his notebook at John and made a face of despairing surprise. His best friend, throwing him under the bus like that! How could he!

“Just go, already!” The teacher ordered with newfound anger at the stupid dilly dallying.

“Okay. Whatever.” Dave agreed.

Even though that’s what Dave said, John knew he was upset for being betrayed like he was, but what else could John do? Dave could lift that shit like it was a damsel in distress with broken ankles. Him? He would be the one to get broken ankles in the process.

Karkat just witnessed a lowly human lift an air conditioning unit like a blue blood might lift his lusus to get it out of the way. The huge thing was lifted with both hands and then accommodated on its shoulder, making an even bigger show of his strength.

He didn’t want to admit. If asked, he would deny with all his might. However, deep down in his psyche, Karkat was impressed. Jealous, even. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. He was gonna fight John in the bathroom, subdue him and bring him to the lab for further study of these hideously pale life forms.

How could anyone be as pale as the shaded human, live under the sun, and still be a functioning member of this backwards, primitive, smelly society? More than just functional, in all honesty. Distinct!

Maybe he should take this human to the lair instead. He seemed dumb enough for Karkat to beguile him into coming over for entertainment. He could then poison him with some sleeping pills and take his unconscious body to the lab, then. 

John would be none the wiser that his dear friend would have been the almost willing subject of Karkat’s experimentations all along! 

Dave and Karkat get to the bathroom. Dave leaves the air conditioning unit at the door, blocking their way out and takes a urinol. Karkat goes to the stall, because he’s not an idiot. Troll junk and human junk are obviously different and he’s not about to blow his cover because he needed to take a piss.

“Gay.” Dave says.

Karkat looks at him “Are you talking to me?”

“I’m not calling myself gay, so yeah. Duh.”

Karkat doesn’t know what it means, but even he can tell it’s supposed to be an insult.

“Shove it down your gaping maw, you piece of buoyant fecal matter.”

“Are you flexing big words at me? Do you think I’m stupid or something?”

Karkat scoffs “I don’t need to guess that one. I have gander bulbs.”

“You want to fight?” Dave threatens, showing him the fist.

On instinct, Karkat shows his teeth and gums, a low growl forming at the back of his throat, but then he reassesses his situation. He’s alone on a planet he doesn’t know, he has no help other than his retarded robot, he’s locked in a tight space with a clearly stronger being and if things keep going in this direction, his disguise and by default, his mission, are going to be compromised.

He can’t fight this guy. No matter how much he wants to.

Karkat puts his hands up in defeat.

“Psssht. Fag.”

“I don’t even know what that means!”

“Oh. So we can use words like ‘buoyant’ but not simple insults? How the fuck are you such a weirdo? No wonder John thinks you’re a fucking alien.”

Karkat freezes. Does this guy know he’s a troll too?

Dave zips himself up after finishing his business, gets closer to Karkat, and pokes him twice in the chest “But I know what you really are.”

Karkat tries to keep the disgust and the dread in by swallowing a painful lump on his throat.

“You’re just a fucking freak.”

Dave turns around, hoists the AC and is out the door.

Karkat wastes no time getting rid of the germ filled T-shirt. The human touched him without washing his hands! Why is humanity so fucking gross?! He throws the shirt into the trash can and picks his palmhusk to dile GIRs number.

“Come and get me. RIGHT NOW!”

“But-”

“RIGHT NOW!” He screams, a whole octave higher and hangs up.

After hanging up, Karkat takes the closest stall to go about his business. He sits pantless, waiting for his urinal sack to empty. In the meanwhile, he opens Gorgle.

_ human gay meaning _

Aaaaaaaaaand search.


	4. Germs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat decided he was sick of it, and that he was gonna get everyone else sick too.

“I’ve just had a brilliant idea GIR,” Karkat said while Gir made sure to keep sucking annoyingly on a straw, trying to get the last of the milkshake from the bottom of the cup “humans, like trolls, are also susceptible to diseases like virus, bacteria and germs in general. However, as proven by that day that the Dave human locked me in the stall of the male bathroom last week, human males have no sense of self-care and/or hygiene. Which means I can start an experiment and spread some simple disease around skool grounds to see how it spreads! How fast? How efficiently? And also, analyze how humans behave in the case of widespread disease. I can, then, upgrade the disease, up until they have to stay at home and start to pass it on to their human parents and the parents to their friends, until all of earth is sick and powerless against the upcoming Imperial Armada! Mwahahahahaha!”

Gir laughs maniacally along. Even the computer joins, but then Karkat starts to feel his throat scratch. He stops and coughs and tells everyone to “SHUT THE FUCK - cof - UP - cof cof - idiots.”

The next day, at skool, instead of going straight to class, like one usually does, Karkat takes a detour to the boys bathroom. He takes a pipette from a tiny glass vial and pours a couple drops of a transparent liquid right on to the door handle. The alien boy almost can’t hold his laugh.

_ Everyone in this filthy, stink bank is going to get impossibly sick _ \- he thought, maliciously -  _ and then we’ll see you really be as sick as you claim you are, Strider. And take John with you, while you’re at it. I’ll cull two stupid assholes with a single, swift, strike, and rid the universe of the human race forever. _

Right as Karkat came into class, John knew something was wrong. The Alien was never late. He was always trying to get into Ms. Snowoman’s good graces, trying to upgrade his status from simple nerd to teacher’s pet. He would always know all the answers, always be the first one to sit, and most annoying of all, always be the first one to class.

Which, as John noticed today, wasn’t the case because *he* was the first one to class.

Dave never cared, as long as he could sit in the middle of the classroom. John once asked him why he liked that place so much, and the answer scared him. “ _ This place has roughly the same distance from every entry point in the classroom.” _ It was like Dave was prepared for a spread fire to begin, but he always knew his friend for being too cautious, even when he looked like he didn’t give a shit about shit.

But not even Dave was here. And usually, when Karkat was late, it was because Dave was pranking him in the name of their broship. 

Suspicious.

John left the classroom with his backpack and all. He knew Karkat couldn’t have gone far. He also smelt the rotten stench of schemes, and John Egbert, son of Mr. Egbert, one of the greatest scientists to ever exist and the trademarked best father in the world, was not going to let some twisted, stupid, dumb alien life form ruin the Earth that his father was trying so hard to improve.

He was going to protect his planet, his home and his loved ones!

From his backpack, John pulled out the tweaked ghost finder and started following the signal until he found The Alien. He was disguised, but even then, he knew what he had seen. He could never forget.

The Alien was hiding a vial of something back in his own backpack, and John knew it couldn’t be anything good.

“Halt there, Alien!” 

Karkat looked up from his backpack and gave John a crooked, cheshire grin, showing all his jagged and slightly crooked teeth. 

“Hey, John.”

The voice that saluted was filled with honeyed deceit, but that was not gonna fool John in the pursuit of his noble quest.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, nothing fucking much,” Karkat lied “I just came out of the toilet. I was going now to avoid finding your boyfriend” he jabbed, after learning that, despite being very common throughout human history, showing romantic inclinations towards someone of the same gender is seen as disgusting in human culture.

_ Stupid. Humans are so fucking stupid! They are limiting romantic worth to the possibility of reproducing. I guess it makes sense for a race that needs one of the parts to take on the role of a Mother Grub, but it’s still ridiculous. Then again, they are primitive. It just gives me more proof to why my race is superior and theirs needs to find extinction _ \- Karkat rationalized.

“Dave is not my boyfriend, he’s my best friend.”

“Hahahahaha. Yeah. Right.” Karkat said, sarcasm dripping out of his every word.

“I’m not a homosexual!”

“Who give’s a shit anyway? You filthy humans are so primitive that just reading about the fact you guys need to objectify a whole person in a relationship just so you can feel like you’re worth something makes me wanna fucking hurl. And the fact that one person need to get useless while you guys are reproducing in so impractical that I wonder how the fuck any of you mokeys are even still alive at all.”

“Oh yeah? And how do you guys even reproduce?”

“We drop our genetic material on a bucket that gets taken to an incetuous slurry pot that gets consumed by the Mother Grub. Then she lays down hundreds of eggs that get picked by a lusus. Like normal people.”

_ How the fuck is any of that considered normal? -  _ John wondered in disgust.

“You guys don’t even take care of your own babies?”

“What the fuck is a baby?”

“You know? Children?”

“Oh. Grubs. No. Of course not. We are a war race. That would be fucking stupid. The parents of the grub would probably cull it, if you really think about it. Which, again, proves that humans are soft and should be wiped from the face of the universe to make space for races that can actually prosper. All of you are just a huge waste of perfectly breathable oxygen and drinkable water.”

“I bet you just say that about any race that isn’t yours.”

"Obviously. Trolls are the epitome of evolution and every other race should bow or just fucking die.”

The look of surprise on John’s face was priceless. Karkat wished he had brought his palmhusk just so he could take a picture.

“I bet trolls don’t even have any other races working for them.”

“Of course we do, if we see any worth in them as slaves. There’s the Klingsnots, the Blywolfs,the Thruyorns aaand those are the ones I can remember from school feeding. I’ll admit I wasn’t really paying attention.”

As Karkat listed the races enslaved by his, John saw Dave moving in closer to them. He started gesturing to his friend to give Karkat a weggie, while trying to cover up the motion by saying something that made sense with it.

He had a plan to find out what was Karkat’s nefarious plan.

“So you just move them out? Rip people from their homes and force them to work for you out in space?”

“What? No. Don’t be rid- aHHHHH!”

“Why am I not surprised that your underwear is cancer themed?”

John loved when Dave set the scene so he could end with the punch-line.

“That’s because he’s nothing more than a cancer in anyone’s lives.”

And usually, my dear reader, Karkat would’ve just dismissed any insult the humans could throw his way. This one, however, hit right home. He was a mutant. A deformation in an otherwise, perfectly balanced caste system. Everyone had a purpose, a strength, a place. Everything worked perfectly, except for him. 

He was broken.

His whole lineage broke the entire, perfectly balanced caste system that his entire race had been so proud of, for sweeps.

He was just a cancer. A cancer trying to fake himself as a fully functional organ.

And failing.

Karkat was thrown forwards to the ground with tears in his eyes while John and Dave laughed at his expense. His underwear was ripped and his bag landed right in John’s arms. 

He wanted to claw their faces and rip their juggulars with his teeth, bind them down and piss on their stupid faces. But he couldn’t do any of those things, or he would blow his cover completely and everyone would know there was an alien amongst them.

The best chance he had at completing his mission, was being underestimated. 

He just hated how humiliating and degrading it was. That’s not what it was supposed to be like. 

But he was going to win, and then he would be acclaimed by his caste for reinstating it. He would be a fucking hero and those two were going to be forgotten forever in the smelly, poo-poo ridden butt crack of history. The Armada was gonna kill them all. Burn them to a crisp. And then, we would sit down in a throne of dead bodies and glory, and laugh while watching their wretched race burn.

“C’mon, Dave. Let’s go. I already got what I needed.”

“We’re not getting this guy’s lunch money, right? I don’t actually want to be known as a bully. Chics don’t dig that anymore.”

“Karkat doesn’t eat human food, I told you that before.”

“He is human, dude. Just look at him. What type of alien would look like such a pathetic nerd?”

“Oh yeah? What human would write like this?”

John takes the vile from Karkat’s bag and shows that it’s written on a scribbled letter that Dave has never seen before.

“How the fuck would I know? But China doesn't use the same alphabet we do. Or Japan. Or Arabia. We don’t know from which country he’s from.”

“But Dave! He’s evil!”

“John, I'm all down to fucking up the nerd, but I'm not going to be doing it if it means I have to be racist about it. He's the racist one. It's the one thing endorsing the wedgies, dude. I don't do this type of stuff. Except for racists."

"Since when do you have a racist hating policy?"

"Does it matter?" Dave asked in earnest. He cranked the door handle to the bathroom and held it open. "We should go before class starts. I'm not gonna be flexing my muscles for the ladies again because I need to take a leak."

"Like that didn't get you 5 locker notes."

"What can I say? I'm not easily swayed."

But for Karkat’s luck, it didn't matter anymore. Dave touched the locker and from previous experience, he was going to become a vector of his virus inducing nanobots.

Maybe with some help from his old mustard hate friend, he could ping the nanobots from those two assholes and crank up the virulence.

He couldn’t kill them yet, but watching the show of desperation on Strider’s face when the human started to see his social life withering around him would be, no doubt, immensely satisfying.


	5. Waffle Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gir makes waffles and Karkat gets a surprise visitor

Karkat’s underground lair was looking more like a lived-in bunker by the time he finally managed to finish the analysis he started.

“Ha! That stupid Dave Human, going around, fist-bumping people who he thinks are ‘cool’ ended up being just what I needed to get my nanobots to spread. When all of the skool grounds are infected my revenge will be -” 

Karkat’s food sack rumbles, and he knows exactly why. He hasn’t eaten in a while. A really fucking long while. GIR, on the other hand, has been getting his face stuffed with human food ever since they landed. The grease on the pizzas was perfect for oiling his machinery, even if the taste was a bit lacking.

Not that he minded. It’s not like the guy who assembled him thought he needed taste-buds.

However, he could not leave his master starving, so he announced “I’m gonna make waffles!” and then ran off.

“What? GIR, no!” Karkat tried to yell at him, but it was too late for GIR to hear his orders. He still needed to make sure that the robot wasn’t going anywhere near the oven. What if he blew up the entire hive and his human neighbours found out about his impeccable disguise?

Since GIR had gone up using the elevator, Karkat was forced to climb his way up the stairs, obviously, holding himself up against the wall. He didn’t want to end up like one of Strider’s stupid characters.

Not that he would ever read that motrosity that the human called entertainment. He was forced to know what was going on because most of his classmates wouldn't shut up about how funny and clever and ironic Dave’s comic was. He might have accessed it once or twice to see what all the fuss was about, but he didn’t stay there for long enough to understand the plot or whatever was going on there.

When he got to the kitchen, to his baffling, GIR had already prepared a plate of waffles with butter for him, without blowing the entire kitchen. Everything had a slight flour dust, and there was a broken egg on the floor, but those things were manageable compared to what he thought was going to happen.

Even then, the food looked so….

Disgustingly human.

_ How can he have been assembled by an Alternian techmaster and yet, against all the god-fucking-aweful-odds, cook this… thing? _

The  _ thing _ was, namely, a waffle tower.

“I’m not eating... this” Karkat stated.

“But I made it for you!” 

“It’s human food, GIR. It's inferior” Karkat told him, stomping his foot on the ground and crossing his arms.

GIR’s eyes filled with water - because the guy that assembled him thought  _ that _ might be useful - and started screaming, unable to contain the sadness and disappointment inside his little, puny chassis.

Karkat - the ever soft-bloodpushed troll - couldn’t possibly live knowing he made his one piece of technology, his only slave on this empress-forsaken rock, cry. 

“OKAY. FINE. FUCK. I’ll EAT THE FUCKING HUMAN FOOD!”

He grabs a fork, pierces the first waffle of the tower and puts it in his mouth while maintaining his eyes closed. He couldn’t give himself the chance to chicken out of the deal, or GIR would keep crying.

When the food reaches his taste-buds, Karkat is surprised. Pleasantly surprised. The thing didn’t taste what it looked like it would taste, but better. GIR could actually cook.

“Holy fuck,” he said surprised, “this is actually pretty edible.”

GIR knew Karkat couldn’t make an actual compliment because he was too much of an asshole, but that also meant he knew when to identify one, even disguised as it was. So he gave his giddy laugh anyway.

“I’m going to make more!”

“WHAT? NO! I HAVEN’T EVEN FINISHED THESE ONES YET! NO! GIR, STEP AWAY FROM THE OVEN!”

“But you said you liked it.”

“I SAID IT WAS EDIBLE, NOW STEP AWAY FROM THE FUCKING OVEN!”

As Karkat gave GIR the command, his eyes went from the normal, usual sky blue hue to a red, threatening color. He knew this meant GIR went on attack mode, but he’s always screaming at GIR, so that couldn’t have been what triggered it. When the robot jumped towards him, aiming at his throat, Karkat ducked, having second thoughts and screaming a very loud and articulated “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

When he looked back, GIR was grappled to the face of a human. A human with a big head, dark gelled hair and a ghost shirt - that looked more like one of his homeplanet’s grubs, but who cares, right?

John just invaded his hive! And GIR jumped to save him from whatever dumb ploy the human was planing. That made his bloodpusher melt a little, if he were to be honest, which he never is.

“You thought you could sneak into my hive, before I could even finish my morning meal and attack me, stab me in the back as the human saying goes, and I wouldn’t know? Wouldn’t prepare myself?”

He was bluffing, obviously. At this point in time he knew that the garden gnomes should have done something to neutralize the threat. He had definitely been postponing a talk with The Computer for long enough. Letting a human enter his hive was the utmost show of incompetence of that piece of junk. That had to be addressed soon.

“HA! I knew your house wouldn’t be normal,” He said, holding GIR at arm’s length and very much away from his face “laser gnomes, robo-parents, what even is this?” he asked, shaking GIR around.

“That’s GIR. You’ve seen me ride him away. He’s my robo-slave. What else is there to tell? And stop fucking shaking him like that,” Karkat orders, slapping John’s hand, forcing him to loose his grip on the squirming machine.

As soon as he falls with a clunk to the ground, he runs to hide behind his master.

“I know you’re up to something Karkat. Tell me what it is!”

“Why? You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

John tries to come up with an argument for that, but comes up short. Karkat has a point. John would never believe him.

“Show it to me then.”

“Now, you must think I’m stupid. I’m not stupid, John. The only reason you’re not already dead it’s because your boyfriend is going to kill me if you don’t show up monday. You, I can take, but Dave? The guy can lift an ancient AC unit with one hand and I like where my head is right now. The guy looks like a fucking blue-blood.”

“He does look kinda royal sometimes, doesn’t he?”

“So ‘above of it all’. Pffft. Sickening.”

“You know I’m straight, though. Right?”

“I quite literally don’t give a shit. Being gay, straight, bi, it’s all human nonsense to me.”

“Trolls don’t have sexuality?”

Karkat puts another waffle on his mouth and chews on it for a bit, thinking.

“We have sex, I told you. Bucket, slurry, Mother Grub, reproduction, BOOM. Is that what you mean?”

“What the fuck is a Mother Grub?”

Karkat sighs.

“Look, you came all this way for me to tell you my master plan to conquer the Earth. I’m not telling you jack shit. I’m also not gonna show you jack shit. So you either sit and I ask GIR to go fetch another plate of waffles or you need to leave. You didn’t even have the fucking decency to tell me you were coming. These are my fucking pajamas.”

John looks down on what Karkat is wearing.

Not much, if I’m being honest, which just made his cheeks blush. Flip flops and briefs. John never knew that there could be a race out there without nipples, but if he got anything from Karkat’s explanation on Troll reproduction these guys aren’t mammals, so the lack of nipples actually make a lot of sense.

He doesn’t look like he came from lizard people country too, so maybe moth makes more sense than he initially gave himself credit for. It’s just weird that he doesn’t have wings, but, again, humans don’t have tails, so maybe it’s just vestigial.

“Like what you see, you fucking weirdo?” Karkat jabs.

“Fuck off. You’re an alien.”

“So are you to me. You don’t see me dressing you down and ogling your shit like I wanna get my bulge into your nook more than I want to keep my head over my shoulders. COMPUTER, SHOW OUR VISITOR THE WAY OUT. This is getting awkward.”

A mechanical tentacle with a grappling end squirms out of the house walls. 

“WOW. Now, we don’t need to get ahead of ourselves here, do we.”

“You bust into my fucking hive. You brought this on yourself.”

One minute, John is looking up seeing that grappling end grasp air, the next he’s out of the house with a plate of waffles dripping down his face. He gets up, wipes the dribbling butter from his face with his hand and screams “YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE LAST OF ME!” and then runs off.

By then, Karkat is already going back to his lab. GIR stops him.

“More waffles?”

He stops to think about this for a moment. GIR could maybe make him coffee, right? It’s easier than waffles in theory and has low risk of blowing anything up.

“Coffee. Make me a coffee.”

“....OKAY!”

The end of the trashcan starts to go down, taking Karkat for a ride down the elevator and back to his laboratory.

“You’re in big trouble, Computer,” Karkat starts, feeling his face grow warmer by the second “You let him see me ALMOST FUCKING NAKED. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

“You’re blushing, sir.”

“NO SHIT. AND IT’S ALL YOUR FUCKING FAULT!”


	6. Locker Buddies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Earth gets stollen and our only hopes are stuffed inside lockers.

Karkat squirms in the hands of his captors, trying to free himself from two lizard-like men. He gets thrown inside a locker, and before he can do anything about if, the door gets shut on his face.

“FUUUUCK. FUCKING- AHHHHH!”

“Shut up, Karkat. Throwing a tantrum is not going to change anything.”

The muffled voice heard from the locker right besides the one where he’s been imprisoned is John’s voice.

“This is all your fault, John. If you had stayed out of my way, Earth would be safe for me to conquer _later_ instead of - oh, I don’t know - getting thrown into a dying sun like manure to a hellish dumpster fire.”

“And how was I supposed to know you weren’t on their side?”

“BECAUSE THEY ARE OBVIOUSLY OSTHEROTHS.”

“Ohhhh. Excuse me, but no human has alien history 101 in school.”

Karkat smacks his head against the door of the locker “Of course they don’t.”

“More important than that, how do we get out of here?”

“How are any humans still alive if your superiors don’t make you go through hostage situation scenarios?”

“How old did you say you were again?”

“I’m seven, asshole. And age has nothing to do with that.”

“Wait, seven? Years?”

“SWEEPS, FOR EMPRESS SAKE. 16 HUMANS YEARS… approximately.”

“And since when do they make you go through dangerous situations?”

“Since birth, now get your head out of your ass and tell me: what does your locker look like?”

“Mostly tight.”

“That checks. Motherfuckers couldn’t even give us proper fucking holding cells. Bunch of cheap bastards.”

“The light on the ceiling seems like it’s busted.”

“Do you have any sharp glass with you?”

“Yes, but not big enough to make a knife, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“SHIT!”

“What about on your side? Tell me what you see.”

“Jack shit. That’s the problem. My locker doesn’t even have a light up at the ceiling. You can’t see the lock on the inside, can you?”

“No. It’s completely smooth.”

“Wait, you have your hands free?”

“You don’t?”

“Tied behind my back. Can’t believe they gave _you_ free hand privileges. I’m gonna kill them after we leave.”

“Yeah, let’s focus on that first. Ohhh. Something lit up on this side.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand what’s written.”

“Ha! They have inside access too. I bet they stole that idea from a ship from our Armada, but I’m not gonna look a gifted muscle beast in the mouth.”

“There’s 12 symbols here.”

“It’s a numeric password, idiot. Try anything just to know how many numbers we have to figure out.”

“But what if that triggers anything this side?”

“Than we’re both as good as dead, and so is your precious fucking planet, now do what I fucking told you.”

“Go to hell. I’m doing my best here.”

“I AM IN HELL. LOOK WHO I HAVE TO COOPERATE WITH. THIS HAS TO BE COSMIC TORTURE.”

“Stop screaming! You make me nervous.”

“WELCOME TO THE FUCKING CLUB. YOU THINK YOU’RE BAD? THEY ARE GOING TO KILL ME JOHN, AND THE ONLY CHANCE I HAVE OF MAKING IT QUICK IS IF I DO IT MYSELF, CAUSE THEY ARE SURE GOING TO HAVE A FIELD DAY TORTURING ME.”

Karkat’s despair begins to simmer, and his eyes start to water.

“I’m never going home. I’m never going to be respected... or appreciated... or loved. I’m just going to die a meaningless, painful fucking death.”

Karkat looks up from the spot his red tears have been marking to the spot on the wall John is knocking.

“C’mon, man. I think you’re gross, but not useless. I do respect you, even if… you, want to conquer my planet and all that.”

Karkat laughs because, well, John saying he respects him is unprecedented.

“I can describe the symbols for you and you can tell me what they are.”

Karkat huffs “Better than not trying to get out, I suppose.”

“Okay, how do we do this?”

“I don’t need to know every symbol. Describe the first symbol on the superior left.”

“It’s very curly. Looks like a T and an L had a baby.”

“The T and L from the human alphabet?”

“Yeah.”

“That number is a 7. The key binding is upside down. 7,8,9 on the first row. 4,5,6 on the second and 1,2,3 in the last.”

“Okay, I never thought I would say that, but man, you’re smart.”

“Not smart enough, apparently. I still got fucking caught.”

“So did I.”

“Exactly.

“Fuck you.”

There’s silence for a second and then they both laugh.

Karkat is the first to stop, trying to get John back on track “Okay. What now.”

“Now I get surprised they don’t have a zero.”

“It’s one of the keys in the end.”

“They have colors on them. The one on the left glows white, like most of the others. The middle one is red and the right one is purple.”

“They even stole our color-coding technique. Pieces of shit. The left one is definitely zero, the middle one is ‘erase’ and the right one is ‘confirm’.”

“Got it. By the way, humans use color coding too.”

“Yeah. Red, green, yellow. I walk your streets, John, and unlike a very scary friend of mine, I don't need to lick things to know what color they fucking are. And at least you guys have your own colors. These shitheads stole our fucking flag to make their color coding.”

“... okay, I can see how that could make you upset.”

“My upsetness can wait. Just put something on the console. Maybe it will give us a hint.”

“But what if I put something wrong and this closet starts to fill with water until I drown?”

“It’s a fucking locker, John. They were not expecting us to show up at all! I don’t know about you, but I can smell dirty underwear. This shit isn’t made to hold prisoners. Much less kill them. Just put something on the console already, you fucking chicken.”

“Okay. Alright.”

John types some numbers into the console and presses purple. The console glows red for a beep, but nothing else happens.

“It’s a 6 digit password.”

“Fuck. I bet it’s a birthday. They’d be dumb enough to put a birthday as a password.”

“You said you could smell underwear. Is there anything else with you? A coat? A set of pants?”

“Oh yeah. I’m going to check the pockets, but this might take a while. I have no FUCKING hands.”

From his locker, John can hear Karkat, and he doesn’t sound like he’s making a lot of progress or dealing well with his lack of hands in the search of leads.

“I think I found a paper but I can’t read shit in here. Even with better sight for the night this place is too goddamn-fucking dark.”

“Press your nose against the door.”

“Wow. That sounds stupid enough to actually work.”

Karkat puts the tip of his nose to the cold back of the locker door. It lights up with the same key bindings that John described to him. On sight he can identify the copy-cat of an Alternian Armada Locker, used only by those who work on the ships. These, however, seem to mimic the ones of highbloods. Cerulean or up. If these were original models he’d know that there would be an in-build password to unlock it. Which is, namely, breaking the machine by writing BOOBS (58008) or (53003) - it depends on the model.

But how does Karkat know all of that?

Him and his good old pal Sollux ended up spending way too much time inside one of these in invader training.

He could try his luck. What’s the worst that can happen? It's just a locker.

He inputs the first code. 5.8.0.0.8. but nothing happens. He tries the second one. 5.3.0.0.3.

Karkat waits for the door to unlock, hopeful that his captors would be just as stupid as he deemed them, then he hears the sound of something unlocking. Suddenly, his socks are wet. He looks down and starts to despair.

His locker is filling up with water. John was right.

“John, I can’t believe I’m saying this but you were right. Whatever you do, don’t imput 53003 on the console, or your lock will start filling with water. Do you understand, fuckface?”

“Karkat? Karkat, are you in danger!?”

“From the moment I stepped my frond on this shithole, genius. But now I’m on a count down and if you can’t help me I’m going to drown. And even if you leave these lockers you can’t understand shit of written Ostheroth, so you won’t ever take Earth back to its place and you and everyone you love will die either because they will be thrown into their sun, or frozen from being too far away from _a_ sun. So you need me. You need me.”

“I’m not going to leave you here. When you die, I wanna dissect your ugly alien corpse myself, asshole.”

“Awesome, now get me out of here.”

“Uh… uh.. have you tried one through six?”

Karkat tries and it fails.

“Wrong.”

“The other way around. Nine to six.”

He tries.

“Also wrong.”

“We had a plan. You were supposed to look around. You found a paper. What did it say?”

“Buy a present for Ghotha. It’s just a fucking reminder.”

“If they have to buy a present for her, it means she’s important to the owner of the locker. We’re on December. Maybe the first two numbers are 12.”

“We still don’t know how old this person is.”

“What is your estimative on how old people on this ship are?”

“I don’t fucking know! 11? Maybe 12?”

“Years?”

“SWEEPS FOR FUCKING SAKES! That’s like 23/24 years old you pathetic monkey!”

“Okay. Yeah. Good luck saving yourself.”

“Nononono. I’m sorry. I’m under stress. The water is starting to get my grub scars wet.”

“Is that your weak spot or something?”

“Focus! _Please_. I’m closer to drowning with each wasted second.”

“These guys reproduce around this age? could he have a kid? or is that his sister? or girlfriend?”

“I can narrow that down. It’s either his ancestor, his descendent or his mating partner. If it’s his mating partner they have the same age. If it’s his progenie, it has to have been born in the span of 1 or 2 sweeps. If it’s his ancestor I’m dead, cause they reproduce throughout their entire lifespan, but that last one is highly unlikely.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain after I’m out. Or if I die you can just gorgle it. Now only the day is missing.”

“If he had a note that means it’s a day that hasn’t happened yet.”

“Or he could have forgotten it there.”

“If that’s the case the month won’t work either. But if the month is right, it’s a day that hasn’t happened yet.”

“Fuck. Okay. So 12. The middle can only be tomorrow and the years can be anything… really.”

“Just test it out man.”

Karkat starts to put in the different combinations, one after the other. John does the same, following the same logic. By the time They’ve tried them all, the water is on Karkat’s chin.

And than he has a realization. He’s making the same mistake that John has, through this whole thing. He can’t input how old that person is in years, or even in sweeps. He has to use the Ostheroth’s calendar and time-measurement-unit.

1.5.3.1.0.0.

It fails.

1.5.3.1.0.1.

Fails again.

He takes a deep breath and tries another combination.

1.5.3.1.0.2.

Fail.

153103.

Karkat breathes out, feeling the carbon burn up his breathing sack. He can hear John smashing the wall between lockers.

He goes again.

153104.

The door glows bright in violet hues, opening up and letting the water run. Karkat is pushed by the torrent and lands on the floor, breathless but infinitely glad that there’s oxigen around him. He coffs a bit.

“Karkat, the password.”

“15 cof- cof- 31 COF- wheeze- 04 cof- cof-”

John puts the password in and it doesn’t work.

“Dude, it failed.”

“Fuck. Okay. Look, John, the race is not over. We still need to get the Earth back. I’m going to leave you here to go stir the ship back without the lizard-faces knowing. I’ll try to find out your password on the way.”

“Are you seriously leaving me behind?”

He gets no response.

“KARKAAAAAT!”

He still gets no response.

“Damnit. That’s what I get for trusting in an Alien.”

On his end, however, Karkat had a plan. He sneaked through the hallways of the spaceship until reaching the control room. The place was mostly empty, but he knew that the control room would have at least one of his captors, and because of that he would definitely need his hands.

It could be cool to tell homeland later that he beat an Ostheroth ship with both hands behind his back, but if he didn’t make it in the first place, there would be no one to tell his story.

He really needed to get rid of his shackles.

Right before reaching the control room, Karkat found a pointy steely object that he couldn’t even start guessing if it was a torture device, an eating apparatus or a weapon, but he knew it could losen the middle ring of his cuffs.

With separate hands that he could now use, he got the weird device and decided he was better off with something stabby than bare handed.

Karkat broke the pad on the wall and the door to the control-room opened. He saw two Ostheroths inside, and hissed his presence into the room.

“Look Shillian. The little pest wants to die. Should I step on him, or would you like the honors?”

“Oh, c’mon Fdle! You always get to play squash the bug.”

“Let’s do it like this, then: whoever kills him first get’s to ask anything from the other.”

While the Ostheroths bicker, Karkat took the opportunity to slice a wire filled with static.

“Hey, lizard-asses. Funny thing about trolls. We descend from ancient moths.”

“We know bug!” They say at the same time.

“Then you two know we really like when things,” he throws the pointy thing in a sprinkler. It starts raining inside the control room. Shillian and Fdle’s eyes boggle when they finally catch up with his plan “light up.”

Karkat drops the wire, electrocuting the Ostheroths and absolutely delighting himself with the show of lights.

When the show is over and both Ostheroths are crisped beyond recognition, he runs to the control panel and sets a new course for the ship. He breathes deeply, happy to have saved the Earth.

Then he realizes he burned the only two people that could know the combination to John’s locker cell.

“SHIT!”


	7. The Egg Project

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat get's paired with an idiot against his will and is assigned an ova to lusus over

“Listen up, rascals. This is the best piece of advice I, as a teacher, could ever give you,” Ms. Snowoman starts to say. Karkat is sitting at the edge of his seat. Maybe it was something related to a world-wide human weak-spot that all the small humans needed to learn how to protect.

“Don’t have sex. Or you’ll have children and children are the worst, as this project will show.”

Every kid in the class performs an obvious eye roll. Dave doesn't know what he was expecting. This is a sex-ed class, after all.

“I’m going to pair two of you for each egg in my desk, and if they come back broken - or worse, don’t come back at all - you fail this assignment. And nobody wants to be here for summer school, least of all me.”

Ok. If failure means getting stuck in town for summer school, Dave really can’t fuck this assignment up. He needs his vacations to be completely free. His brother promised to take him to train on a mountain top - like some real anime shit. Maybe he’d have the chance to fight a bear and sit underneath one of those ball-freezing waterfalls, but the best thing is that he’d definitely be able to cook some smores on a firepit and maybe even snowboard with his Bro from the top of the mountain.

“And just to make sure all of you will take my advice to heart, no one is getting to pick their partner.”

Every kid in the class makes a displeased sound. Some grunt, some moan, some gasp, but much to Ms. Snowoman’s pleasure, no kid seems pleased with such a horrible development.

Dave doesn’t really believe in god, but he starts praying anyway.

Snowoman takes a paper from the drawer underneath the desk and clears her throat before saying the names written on it.

“Jennyfer and Anderson. Oswald and Lian. Heather and Lisa.”

Each pairing seemed more devastated than the last. John is dead sure that Heather and Lisa are going to kill each other before the end of the month. Dave scouts the class and can see several murdersome stares directed at Anderson. Every guy in the class would like a chance to do this project with Jenny. She’s the prettiest girl of the class and her usual group is Heather. No one’s ever heard of Jenny pairing up with a guy before.

Andy, on the other hand, looks about ready to grow himself an ostrich face, bury it in a hole and hope to die. 

Yikes.

“John and Nathan.”

Oh no. Nonono. John is always so good at these kinds of projects! You can just leave it in his hands and worry about anything else, usually. Now you will be forced to get paranoid over an egg. You don’t trust anyone.

“Dave and Karkat.”

Karkat looks at Dave. Dave looks back at Karkat. They keep staring at each other, not knowing how to react. The teacher finishes the name list and adds “No one is allowed to change partners. I don’t want to have to re-do my entire list. Make a line standing side by side with your respective partner to come grab your son or daughter. And don’t. push. each other,” She warned.

John turns around to see Dave staring at Karkat, and Karkat staring back at his best friend. He can’t imagine how Dave got such bad luck. Anyone in class would make a better partner for this project than Karkat. Literally anybody. Being paired up with the lump of moss growing by the side of the window would be better.

He’s just glad that he wasn’t the one to have to do it. Ever since the Ostheroth abduction, John made a promise to himself to never trust Karkat again. He had to be pried out of the locker, since the alien killed the other aliens that knew the password to get him out.

Karkat didn’t leave him there, but the process of getting him out was slightly painful, very unnerving and extremely dangerous. He almost died. AGAIN.

If Dave was going to have to trust Karkat, he was on rocky turf. That 's for sure.

On the line to get their assigned egg, Dave couldn't help thinking about all the times he stuffed Karkat inside the locker, and how, now, Karkat had the perfect opportunity to get back at him. Ruin him in ways he never imagined someone could. He realizes his hands are fidgeting, and hides them in his jeans.

Karkat, on his side, dreaded summer school for more reasons than one. With the free time off he could plot several plans to conquer the planet and several others to get rid of John and his meddling human ways. 

Not to mention the side effects of being considered a bad student that would follow him with such a gargantuan failure. But how could he step up to Dave without showing his true form?

Dave starts to rationalize. Karkat doesn’t know he has the upper hand, so maybe he can just keep acting like he was before.

With his face still as impassive as always he grabs Karkat by the collar.

“Look here, fag, if you fuck up this assignment I’ll go down with you, so you better take good care of that egg or I’ll scramble your stupid face.”

Karkat opens a smile after hearing Dave’s warning. He was going to take the assignment seriously! Then he understands the words and his face goes back to a scowl.

Seeing Karkat give a smile so freely does something to Dave’s stomach. He brushes off as some sort of disgust and elects to not dwell on it. Karkat pushes him away, making him lose his grip.

“Like I, of all these nookwipes, would want to spend any more time then the minimum necessary with you and your shitty. Fat. Face.”

“My face isn’t fat. You just look hungry all the time. Are you poor or something?”

“Like you’re one to talk. At least I come to school with clothes that fit me, and not something three times my size with holes on it. Who does your laundry? A bunch of rats? Look at those holes.”

“It was a stylistic choice, poser. And these are bullet holes. I bought this shirt from a real gangsta that got shot in the shoulder.”

“I bet you can’t even say the name of said gangster.”

“Of course not. He was russian. I can’t speak russian.”

“You don’t  _ need _ to speak fucking russian to  _ say a russian name _ . Just like you don’t need to speak spanish to say spanish names. You can’t say the name of the guy because YOU’re the poser. I bet that shirt is from your lusus and they lied to your face so you wouldn't question the fact that you got an ugly, trashy and oversized hand-me-down."

"At least my problems have an easy fix. You'd have to be born again to get your stupid face to look any better."

The people that hear Dave's comeback start to egg them on with "ooooh"s and "ouch"es.

"That's enough, boys," warned Ms. Snowman with the egg on her hand.

They got closer to her and extended their palms, letting her choose which one of them she'd trust with the egg.

She looks at Karkat's guarded position and at Dave's relaxed, aloof one, like he knew she'd choose him because he was the only real option.

She stops just long enough to assess she has a choice to make and then puts the egg on Karkat's palm. Dave looks incredulously at her, but she can only tell because his eyebrows rise far beyond the cover of his shades.

With no intonation but loud and clear, he asks "Are you serious?"

Ms. Snowman rises from her chair and everyone else sits, except for Dave and Karkat. She comes closer to the cool kid and speaks her mind.

"I have no qualms with Mr. Vantas. He's been nothing but a good student in my every class. He's attentive, helpful, disciplined and except when harassed, quiet. Which is more than I have ever been able to say about you, Mr. Strider in all the years I have taught you."

Dave feels his stomach drop. He braves a smirk before trying to bargain.

"But we have history. Doesn't that count for something?"

Snowoman replies with a bark in her voice "A one way ticket to detention until you're old enough to drink."

Dave feels his face burn. He doesn't know if because or rage or shame. His best guess is that's a mix of both, and it's all Karkat's fault for being the teacher's stupid lap dog.

He opens his mouth to let the teacher have a piece of his mind about this whole thing, but Karkat grabs by the shirt and wanks his to the side a bit.

"We're going to sit and read the report card."

Ms. Snowoman nods her approval and Dave is pulled away from her and close to Karkat's seat. He swats Karkat's hand away from him.

"Why the fuck did you do that?"

"Because you were going to say something that was gonna send you to detention, and as painful as it is to admit this out loud, you're a smart asshole. I don't have the faintest fucking clue on how to even start taking care of an egg with a calcium exterior. All the eggs I've seen were pupating eggs, made of silk. Usually people just let them be and whatever comes out, comes out by its own volition."

"You come from a country with no eggs."

Karkat realizes his mistake but is relieved by Dave's obliviousness.

"Yeah. Country."

Karkat looks at the egg a little closer and is amazed by the resemblance it bears with a cluck beast ova.

“Wait a minute. Is this a cluck beast ova?”

“I don’t know what the fuck that is.”

“A beast that lays eggs for people to consume.”

“You mean a chicken. Yes. That’s a chicken egg. How come you didn’t know that was a chicken egg.”

“These kinds of eggs are way more purple where I come from. And look way tastier too. This ova looks like it was a skin disease.”

“What? So now you’re racist with eggs too?”

“Said the white priviledged fuck.”

“Being white doesn’t make me automatically racist.”

“Look. It doesn’t matter. Every human, no matter where they’re from, no matter their sex or history, no matter their skin color or height, they’re all gross, smelly, feculent monkeys. I was being literally racist. It wasn’t about one type of human. All humans are shit in this dumpster fire of desperation and stupidity called Earth.”

Wow. Dave got this guy totally wrong. He isn’t racist. He’s completely hopeless. Humanity has no salvation in the eyes of this guy. He genuinely believes all humanity is shit and that it’s destroying the planet.

“And I thought I was pessimistic.”

“No. Just an idiot.”

“If I’m an idiot, what does that make you?”

Karkat stops to think for a second, but he finds the perfect answer “Powerful.”


End file.
